Five People Gibbs Saw in Mexico
by Rysler
Summary: Gibbs sits on a beach and listens to the waves at night.


I.

Ziva sat across from me. Candlelight and the campfire reflected in her eyes, making them black pools with angry yellow flickering. How she had found me didn't matter; She could find anyone. I should be flattered she choose to seek me out, I guess.

The water crept toward us. The water receded. We were on a beach somewhere in Mexico. I didn't even know the name of the area. I'd built a campfire, intending to make hot dogs, but I'd ended up just staring at the ocean. I didn't know where the candles came from. They were pushed haphazardly into the sand. Some were too close to the water, and their flames had been darkened by the chaotic tide. Others melted peacefully into the sand.

Ziva found me.

I let her find me.

"You're the only one I absolutely trust," I said, even though she'd brought my memories back to me when I probably would have been better off without them. Even though it hurt to breathe knowing there had been 3,000 casualties on American soil on my watch.

Two dead.

My chest hurt, and I tried to stop breathing, but I had the presence of mind to see Ziva look away in shame. I grabbed her wrist. "I trust you," I repeated. "It doesn't matter why, Ziva."

Ziva smiled. "Then I will just... go with it," she said, and cocked her head at me.

"You got that one right," I said.

It felt looking into a mirror. I didn't want to see myself like that. The despair. The hollowness. I wanted to look away from her, but if I wasn't looking at myself, I was looking at the damn world. I looked at the ocean anyway, where the moon hung over the horizon to cast a white path across the water. The sea seemed vast and lonely.

Ziva cleared her throat. "I didn't come alone," she said.

I smiled.

I trusted her with my life.

* * *

II.

Abby folded herself into the dent Ziva left. She rearranged her body and shifted and wriggled like a cat.

"Hi Gibbs," said she said. She'd settled into a Buddha stance. Tears streaked her face, but she was trying to laugh. "You look good. I mean, considering. I'm not sure what to consider. Considering the bad news? Or considering you almost blew up? Or--God, Gibbs." Her lip quivered.

I took her hands, and said, "Abby."

"Gibbs?"

"Just... be."

"Be what? Is this some sort of Mexican healing ritual? Because you know I know about things like that. The dead. Oh, God, I'm sorry to bring that up. I want to help. That's all. Just let me--"

"Abby."

She swallowed.

"Forget what you know. Just be you."

Abby seemed to understand, and silence descended on us. Peace and warmth and love in the black night. Very Abby. I smiled. For about three seconds. Then she audibly swallowed.

"Go away, Abby," I said.

She stood. "Gibbs. I don't know how to fire a gun. Or how to question anyone so they'll give up something for me. I don't know anything like that. But... But I'm valuable, still. Right?"

"You're on my team, Abby," I said.

"Thank you, Mr. Gibbs," Abby said gruffly. She was smiling she walked away.

So was I.

* * *

III.

Tony flopped into the sand. He said nothing. His gaze darted everywhere. Analyzing the perimeter, I knew, and probably trying to figure out what to do.

I said, "Tony."

His head jerked. He stared at me.

I said, "Say something."

"Hi, boss," he said.

I nodded. He grinned.

"You're leading the team now," I said.

"Yes. And doing a damn fine job."

"Uh huh."

He squinted. "Not that I'm as good as you. Yet. Or, ever. I mean."

I waved my hand, and he shut up. "Tony. One piece of advice."

"Anything, boss."

I knew he meant it. Anything. If I asked him, he'd go shoot Ziva in the head. He'd kill the only person I trusted on my orders, because he believed in me.

I said, "Don't be like me."

He gawked. I could see the anger on his face, but he didn't say anything. Just stared, like I had betrayed him by cutting off his balls. Well, I was trying.

"I mean it, Tony."

He looked down.

"Now go and get Tim."

He scrambled to his feet. I listened to him go, feeling like I was getting my Last Rites. I had been foolish to abandon them, my team, by storming out in anger. Never act in anger. That's what I wanted Tony to know. I wonder what Ziva had said to him to convince him to come to Mexico.

Jenny--She'd convinced Jenny instead.

I smirked.

* * *

IV.

Tim hovered at my shoulder. "Hi, boss," he said.

"Probie," I replied.

He plopped onto the sand. If I had a son, I would have wanted Tim--my imperfect boy. He liked to help people. He helped Abby, despite the lack of promotional advancement it offered. He was gentle with Tony, despite the abuse. He was kinder to Ziva than anyone else... because she needed it.

Now he wanted to help me so bad he was shaking. His fists grabbed at sand. If I asked him to kill Ziva, he would demand an explanation. He would argue and defend her with words and software and, if he had to, his gun, his hand steady on the holster. Because he believed in me.

He sat next to me, half-smiling and staring at the ocean. "It's nice," he said.

"Yup."

"I've always wanted to be more like you," he said.

I could hear the tears in his voice, and I wondered what it had done to him to see Kate's death. To see the boat explode, to see the Pentagon on fire on television back when he was a computer tech in Maryland. I wanted to ask him if that was why he carried a gun.

My own flesh and blood.

* * *

V.

Jenny didn't say anything when she knelt before me. She moved closer than the others. She kissed me. Her warm mouth closed on mine. I let my arms encircle her waist and guided her backward onto the rivulets of sand left by my team's tramping feet. I kissed her back and her mouth parted to mine. My tongue slipped between her lips.

She was thin and lithe and hard, squirming under me and pulling my shirt over my head. I had a fleeting thought for Ziva, hoping she'd keep the team away. I had to trust her. Jenny ran her hand down my chest. we rolled into the ocean. She yelped. I laughed.

She kissed me, her chin lifting toward me, her mouth wet and salty. I touched her like I had every right to. I pushed apart her thighs. She dragged her nails down my back and I forgot everything but the sensation of her. We were the last two people on earth, like in that movie Tony watches where everyone's dead except the lovers on the beach.

I breathed in the sea and the smoke and felt no pain. I moved inside Jenny. She gasped in my ear. Her wiry curls pressed against my belly. Her earrings scraped my tongue. I came inside her, and whispered that I was glad she was here. That she'd come for me.

Ziva hadn't had to convince her at all.

* * *

VI.

"I hope I said the right thing," said Tim. He was wringing his hands and pacing in the sand.

Tony stood with his arms folded. He said, "He just wanted you with him. That's all he needs right now. It doesn't matter what you said."

Tim stopped. He stared at Tony through the dark. A hundred meters down the beach, tiny lights flickered against the blue ocean. "You're right," he said.

"Of course I'm right," said Tony.

"No... I think you're right. That you're a good leader, Tony."

Tony nodded. He sighed, and looked away as Tim placed a hand on his shoulder. He said, "I didn't really know what to say to him."

VII.

"He looked so... shrunken," said Abby. "Like his life force is gone. Or something. I don't know how to describe it so that I believe it." She cupped sand into her hands and dug at the ground.

Ziva knelt in front of her. Abby kept staring at the ground, kept digging, so Ziva took her jaw gently, and made Abby look into her eyes, and said, "He'll be fine."

Abby inhaled.

Ziva said, "I saw him there... what he had done... You would know. What do the candles mean? You understand him. Better than I... What do they mean?"

Abby blinked. Tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes.

"I don't know what they represent," said Ziva. Her hand shook against Abby's face. "I don't know what it all means." The last word was swallowed by her own sob. She cursed and closed her eyes.

Abby leaned forward and hugged Ziva's shoulders. She felt the thin chain clasp at the back of Ziva's neck, delicate, as Ziva shook in her arms. She wanted to say it was going to be all right, but the very act of cradling an assassin in the middle of nowhere, not even her own country, belied hope. So instead she prayed.

She asked God for forgiveness for all the times she hadn't held Ziva before. Or Kate, or Tim, when he'd cried with nightmares and was afraid to go to work in the morning, because she had wanted to be as strong as they were. Like Gibbs.

"This is crazy," she said.

Ziva laughed.

* * *

VIII.

Ducky stood at the edge of the tide, barefoot, with his pants rolled up to his knees. "Well," he said, glancing down the beach at the two figures entwined. "Whatever two adults do to heal, I suppose is appropriate..."

The boys were behind him, playing at stoic, pretending to be men. The young girls were hiding their secret grief in each other. He was glad to be past all that. Jethro was here, and the children, and the rest didn't concern him at all.

Ducky let his voice rise above the tears and the tides and the silence. "I've never really spent much time in Mexico, you know. But as a lad, we vacationed in Spain. I was hunting for seashells one morning before my mother woke up, walking along a beach very much like this one, when I came across a very peculiar bottle. Naturally, I thought..."

END


End file.
